France best, U.S. worst in preventable death ranking (19th out of 19) - Reuters

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

The worlds richest nation. Which is great...if you happen to be rich.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080108/ts_nm/deaths_rankings_dc_1;_ylt=AofzlTHz0YEm_X2nEPd.luUE1vAI

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - France, Japan and Australia rated best and the United States worst in new rankings focusing on preventable deaths due to treatable conditions in 19 leading industrialized nations, researchers said on Tuesday.


If the U.S. health care system performed as well as those of those top three countries, there would be 101,000 fewer deaths in the United States per year, according to researchers writing in the journal Health Affairs.

Researchers Ellen Nolte and Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine tracked deaths that they deemed could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care, and ranked nations on how they did.

"It is startling to see the U.S. falling even farther behind on this crucial indicator of health system performance," Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen said.

"The fact that other countries are reducing these preventable deaths more rapidly, yet spending far less, indicates that policy, goals and efforts to improve health systems make a difference," Schoen added in a statement.

[sakabatou]

1. But, but, we'd become commies!

And... long waits and um... yeah!

[silverweb]

2. Shameful.

Puffed up and swaggering with belligerent, nationalistic pride, telling other nations what to do and how to run their own affairs... but failing so shamefully in our own country in such a basic way.

[WinkyDink]

3. Just ask Diana, Princess of Wales!

[marmar]

17. Que?

:wtf:

[K8-EEE]

4. But...but...Rudy says we have the BEST SYSTEM IN THE WORLD!

If you have his deal maybe, but most of us don't....we just pay for HIS, that's fair!

[melody]

5. Yet more Alpha primate chest-beating

Their "EU is best" group doing their rendition of the US right-wing's "godless communists and surrender
monkeys" rant. (yawn)

None of this will help anyone or anything. All it seeks to do is demean one people for the power-seeking
ambitions of another.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. No, not really: non-EU countries are 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th, 14th and 19th

So, overall, the EU probably doesn't do quite as well as the average country in the rankings. And the research, done in Britain, was funded by an American health policy foundation. So it doesn't look at all like an 'EU is best' report.

Perhaps it's just right? I urge you to consider that. Perhaps the US does have a problem with preventable deaths. Recognising that could help people to fix it.

[melody]

8. The issue isn't anything the US does. It's the source and instigation of the information

It would take me a hundred posts to go over it, but suffice to say, I see this as the same old primate
party line.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. The 'primates' being the Commonwealth Fund?

Or Ellen Nolte and Martin McKee? Or Will Dunham? The editors of Health Affairs? Reuters?

If they'd left the US out of their ranking, what would your attitude to it be?

[melody]

14. It has nothing to do with the content. It's the source of the spin

We've gone over this and over this. If you need to believe that the EU is perfect and without blemish,
by all means do so, but just as I kick tires on the "USA #1" morons, I do the same thing to the HJ neocons
and their ilk. I've been doing it for years. If you don't know the backstory, I'm not going to go into it.

Put me on ignore and I cease to exist. This isn't a US versus EU war. It's criticism of globalist spin doctors and their own machinations.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. Well, that's why I asked you whichc of the sources you didn't trust

Whether it's the American foundation, the German or Northern Irish researchers (neither of whose countries does particularly well in the rankings), and so on. But you seem unable to say. Something in there you regard as 'EU', despite the complete lack of mention of the EU in the report, and the good results reported in Japan, Australia etc as well as France.

The strange thing is that the 'HJ neocons', whose organisation has only existed in Britain for a couple of years, are the most pro-US Europeans there are. I'm not at all sure why you bring them up - or how you've been criticising them 'for years'. But are you saying that no Europeans should behave like the Henry Jackson Society - ie no Europeans should admire the USA?

"This isn't a US versus EU war" - I quite agree. I was trying to work out why you painted it as one by saying this was written as an 'EU is best' report. It's a report about healthcare.

"It's criticism of globalist spin doctors and their own machinations"; are you saying that the US should always stick to its own policies, and never consider adopting the more successful ones from other countries? Are health researchers to you all "globalist spin doctors"?

[melody]

19. This has nothing to do with policies whatsoever

You seem to be responding to your interpretation of what I was writing based on your not
having the background in what I'm discussing. I suggest you look at the actual Henry
Jackson Society and its founders. They postdate similar groups. And they're about as
"pro-American" (as in the people of the US, not the current regime) as the People for
the New American Century.

At that, I'm not going to be responding further to your entries in the thread. I've suggested to you myriad
reading resources. If you like, I can send you the list again.

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. I've been posting here about the HJS since early 2006

so I'm quite familiar with them. They're a bunch of Cambridge academics who have attracted the support of PNAC members, and some British MPs and similar, who think that Britain should lead the EU into having a neocon foreign policy, modelled after US foreign policy (being ready to invade countries that don't have 'the right kind of democracy', that kind of thing). Why you think that's relevant to the performance of various countries' health systems, I can't tell. What predecessors you're talking about, I don't know - I don't remember you've ever giving 'a list', or 'reading resources' - on the HJS, or on health care, but feel free to post it, or PM me with it.

I don't know what your reference below to "Conjunctiva" is at all. If that explains your position on health care in different countries, a link would help a lot - the word, of course, tends to turn up rather literally in a search to do with health. I'm pretty sure you're not talking about the eye.

[melody]

24. When I first mentioned the HJS in 2005, you'd never heard of them

Now you're an expert? There are multiple layers of HJS and they aren't what they seem to be. A little like Skull and
Bones except they don't masturbate in caskets. lol

As for Conjunctiva (C1), the company I'm talking about doesn't show up in "references".

This will be my final post to the thread -- have your last word and let's kill the thing because we're discussing
apples and oranges.

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. I can't remember or find what you said in 2005

and I don't remember talking to you about it. My first post on them here was in late 2005: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=191&topic_id=13042&mesg_id=13042

"As for Conjunctiva (C1), the company I'm talking about doesn't show up in "references"."

Then why mention them? If you don't think other people will have heard of them, but won't explain who or what they are, then it's a pointless reference.

Some time you should tell us about the "multiple layers of HJS".

[LeftishBrit]

10. It's not 'power-seeking' to want better health care, or even to boast about it

And this has nothing to do with the EU in any case. France is in the EU, but Japan and Australia are certainly not!

Unfortunately, the UK is falling behind in this matter, due to our wonderful(?!) leaders.

[melody]

13. It's about hating on the US in any form. I look at Conjunctiva and its connections to HJS

And the neocons.

Australia and Japan were thrown in for added detail.

[LeftishBrit]

26. If, as I assume, you mean the Henry Jackson Society...

this would be very unlikely stuff for them to promote. They are gung-ho supporters of the American government and American power, and promote EU collaboration with America, not EU opposition to America.

I don't think the HJS has any official views about health care; but two of the relatively few books that their online shop sells are by Melanie Phillips and Oriana Fallaci. Both of them are highly critical of Europaean welfare-states, and Fallaci is fanatically opposed to them. While I am sure that the books are there because of their advocacy of hawkish foreign policy, I doubt that they'd be there if the HJS had strong views about Europaean health systems being better than the American one.

What is Conjunctiva? It sounds like the name of a medical journal specializing in eye conditions!

[depakid]

6. Yet another indication that the US is well on its way to 3rd world status

[LeftishBrit]

11. Sadly, the UK is falling somewhat behind -thanks to our lovely leaders

Thatcher starved the NHS; Blair tried to run it like a factory. I know we're still really lucky compared with the USA; but it would be nice to see someone sensible in charge!

[Zywiec]

12. I wonder if obesity is one of the reasons? n/t

[The2ndWheel]

15. You also have to look at the size of the populations

I know they average things out, but that only goes so far. We have 300 million people in this country. The next closest country on that list is Japan, with about 1/3 of our population, and they're aging rapidly.

Some of these countries with 4, 5, 12 million people have to do anything they can to keep people alive, economically speaking, or else they won't have much of a country. The more people you're dealing with, the more difficult it is to create a system where everyone gets everything. If you can create such a system for that many people at the same time, you could get everything and more, but then you'll have a greater impact on the environment.

Although, when you look at a number like 101,000 fewer deaths a year, you wonder why the corporation and the state aren't forcing us, at gunpoint, to pay for a single payer healthcare system. 101,000 extra cogs a year is more tax money for the government, and more consumption for business.

[marmar]

18. Perhaps, but people delaying prevention treatments because they don't have coverage....

.... or have insufficient coverage is a much bigger factor, IMO. And in that department, we stand alone amongst the developed nations (and even some of the "Third World").

[The2ndWheel]

22. But why don't they have, or do have insufficient, coverage?

Because we don't have a single system for 300,000,000 people. No country does. Obviously this is very simplified, but maybe if you broke the US up into 20 individual countries(or some number), with 15 million people in each one, you might be able to get that system quicker in each country if it wanted it. There is no system for 300,000,000 people though. Unfortunately it won't be as easy as just taxing and covering. It'll be a whole new...thing.

We also stand alone amongst the developed nations in terms of population, and even some of the "Third World".

[goodgd_yall]

20. Do you think it might have something to do with health care systems?

:silly:

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

21. Having lived in Italy and now the US

I believe Italy came in fifth? Anyway, I don't recall having to wait more than a few days for a regular exam or to see a specialist. Here in the US, when I had my miscarriage just two weeks ago I called an ob/gyn to make an appointment to ensure everything was fine... now, this happened the weekend of Dec. 15. The appointment? Feb 1. F&*k that! What if something were wrong with me? Other ob/gyns have the same waits, so it's not a question of that particular ob/gyn office being busy. My deductible is $1500 and my copay is $50. My ER bill for my miscarriage (I saw one nurse for 10 minutes, a doctor for 5 minutes and then I was whisked away for an ultrasound - for a total of 6 hours in a cold room) is well over $2300. Something is truly wrong here.